Jonah 1:7 - 2:10

God will do whatever it takes to get you back into His will for your life. Our life may not go as we have expected but we need to get this message, deep into our souls, all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose...when we give our life to Him our life is not ours alone, it is His!

The focus in the story of Jonah is on the Lord’s sovereign control over creation to bring about His purpose.

Jonah: A Reluctant Missionary 
Sometimes the prophets of the Lord tried to challenge His wisdom in calling them for divine service. However, Jonah is the only case in the record of Scripture where a true prophet of the Lord  tried hard to thwart the will of God by fleeing from the task that God had given him. Jonah tried to go as far as he could in the opposite direction from where God had commanded him. Jonah hoped that Nineveh would get just what it deserved. He was afraid that if he announced judgment the people of Nineveh might respond in a manner that would prompt God to change His mind. So, in an attempt to restrain God from being merciful to his national enemies, Jonah ran away.

Jonah 1:17 -2:10

¹⁷ Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. 
2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. ² And he said: 
“I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, 
And He answered me. 
“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, 
And You heard my voice. 
³ For You cast me into the deep, 
Into the heart of the seas, 
And the floods surrounded me; 
All Your billows and Your waves passed over me. 
⁴ Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; 
Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ 
⁵ The waters surrounded me, even to my soul; 
The deep closed around me; 
Weeds were wrapped around my head. 
⁶ I went down to the moorings of the mountains; 
The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; 
Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, 
O Lord, my God. 
⁷ “When my soul fainted within me, 
I remembered the Lord; 
And my prayer went up to You, 
Into Your holy temple. 
⁸ “Those who regard worthless idols 
Forsake their own Mercy. 
⁹ But I will sacrifice to You 
With the voice of thanksgiving; 
I will pay what I have vowed. 
Salvation is of the Lord.” 
¹⁰ So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.